


Polyglot

by OldShrewsburyian



Category: Timeless (TV 2016)
Genre: (is a tag apparently! amazing), Aftermath of Torture, Alternate History, F/M, Flowers, Friendship, Friendship/Love, Historical Accuracy, Historical References, Multilingual Character, New York City, One Shot, Singing, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-02
Updated: 2019-02-02
Packaged: 2019-10-21 04:44:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,012
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17636222
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OldShrewsburyian/pseuds/OldShrewsburyian
Summary: Originally from a prompt by PrairiePirate, cross-posted here as 2k seems a respectable length for a one-shot. "To the Time Team’s genuine surprise, and Rufus’ feigned indignation, Flynn’s languages turn out to be his most consistently valuable asset."





	Polyglot

**Author's Note:**

  * For [PrairiePirate](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PrairiePirate/gifts).



To the Time Team’s genuine surprise, and Rufus’ feigned indignation, Flynn’s languages turn out to be his most consistently valuable asset. (The missions requiring a singleminded and virtuosic violence have become more rare since Emma’s takeover of Rittenhouse.) To Lucy, who swotted dutifully for her Ph.D. reading exams, the most remarkable thing is the ease with which he seems to navigate them. She had, of course, realized at some level that he spoke the kind of Spanish that could get him an audience with Santa Ana, the kind of German that allowed him to navigate Nazi Germany with the language as the least of his worries. But she still finds it impressive to watch him work; she still finds it almost mesmerizing to listen.

***

Italian (New York City, 1928)

“This looks like the set of ‘The Godfather,’” says Rufus, eyeing the game of _bocce_ in the public park across the street.

“I think this _was_ the set of ‘The Godfather,’” returns Wyatt, squinting up at the awning of the DiLuca funeral parlor.

“This is not the _time_ ,” hisses Lucy. “Fiorello La Guardia is anti-racist and anti-corruption, and if Rittenhouse arranges a fatal accident, all his mayoral policies are finished before they’ve begun. The ma — er, the families — are the least of our worries. They keep order in these streets because no one else will. And we need to find La Guardia _now_.” 

“Right,” says Wyatt. “The out-of-work-laborers bit. I’ll ask at the bakeries, Rufus’ll take the vegetable-sellers. We’ll keep our ears open. It’ll be all right, Luce.” 

She is far from sure, but she manages a smile. These are her people, and she trusts them, and that has to be enough. As Rufus and Wyatt turn aside on 188th St., she and Flynn stay together. Since Chinatown, Agent Christopher’s official policy has been to treat Lucy as a potential target. So Lucy has grown used to Flynn’s hand at her elbow, his presence like a bulwark. (In a frigid eighteenth-century winter somewhere near the Canadian border, she had tried to suggest to the team that what Agent Christopher didn’t know wouldn’t hurt her. Wyatt had simply said “No,” just as Rufus threatened to tell on her. Flynn had said nothing at all; Lucy cannot forget the look on his face.)

What takes her by surprise in history, over and over again, is how much she loves it. The thrill and the terror of being on hand at pivotal moments in time… even those she has become halfway accustomed to. But places like this neighborhood — the warm sunlight on the bricks of the Catholic church to their left, the Sicilian pizza-seller with a face like a walnut, the seamstress on her stoop, the graceful scrollwork on the fire escapes of ordinary apartment buildings — these leave her with a lump in her throat and an ache under her ribs. 

A lean man in a smock is setting out dried codfish at the corner grocer’s, where a Star of David is set into the tiled threshold. He watches them with curious eyes; Flynn greets him with a tilt of the head and a courteous _Buongiorno_ , establishing their bonafides. They walk as far as the market. Lucy admires the artichokes, assesses the access routes, and reproaches herself for not expecting a language barrier in the Bronx. Two brothers argue amiably over their vegetable stand, a young couple flirts by the butcher’s, and nowhere does Lucy see anything suspicious.

Flynn presses a bunch of flowers into her hand, and she blinks up at him. The florist thanks Flynn — that much she _can_ make out — and she does not think it is only for his purchase. The man’s son, a boy of about eight, follows them with dark eyes as they walk away.

“I told him,” murmurs Flynn, when they are out of earshot, “to send his son home. Let’s find the others.”

Lucy has to stop herself from glancing over her shoulder. “But I didn’t see anything!” She may not have the language, but she is a historian, and all the evidence is here. “No one — no one avoided anyone else, no one lingered too long at the delicatessen…”

“And with the woman selling dried goods no one lingered at all.”

“That could be because she’s a Protestant or because she’s taken the wrong lover or…”

“She was greeted respectfully and perfunctorily,” cuts in Flynn quietly, “and there was a gun in her mending bag.”

Lucy takes a deep breath, inhaling the scent of her yellow roses. She can’t help the familiar, twisting guilt that settles in her gut; she can’t help feeling that she ought to apologize for lashing out in anger against her own powerlessness. But with him, she thinks, she doesn’t need to. He knows that anger well enough.

***

French (Marengo, 1800)

Lucy’s French is passable. She knows this, and she also knows it to be _just_ passable, passable with the right backstory or the right degree of incuriousness on the part of whoever is speaking to her at the time. Fortunately, with Napoleon’s forces sweeping down over the Alps and through the Piedmont, odd regional accents are ten-a-penny. The diction of the friendly locals offering information about the Roman forces is likely to be the least of the sentries’ concerns. So Lucy does the persuading, alight with the conviction that Melas _must_ be defeated, earnest in explaining why it is vital that she and her husband speak to the Consul himself. (She had never thought she’d be grateful for the necessity to pander to the military history nuts in her survey courses; but oh, she is now.) Though the guard cocks an eyebrow at her halting attempts to describe topography, he calls over his superior officer — and they’re in.

“ _Essaie de ne pas paraître trop soulagée_ ,” murmurs Flynn, and she straightens her shoulders, walks taller at his side.

The most astonishing thing about the camp of the French army is its size: the reality of cooking fires and canvas tents, latrines and laundresses, on the scale necessary to accommodate this many soldiers. There is more mud than Lucy had expected. There are more knots of men just sitting around, polishing bayonets or playing cards. There is far more singing, and Lucy itches to get her hands on pencil and paper, to transcribe the bawdy invented verses and the wistful folksongs, ephemeral and vibrant and achingly human.

“Let’s drink to Fanchon! I marched out to seek for glory, and I found it in her arms! Drink to Fanchon…”

“How sad the girls of Paris must be, pining for their soldiers…”

“Will a Gascon ever forget what he owes you?”

“The saints of France are a noble lot, but they ain’t got what our Bonaparte’s got…”

Together they wait. The June night is warm, and the army is at ease with itself, but Lucy can feel her heart racing. The Austrian army is waiting for the First Consul of France. The European Coalition is waiting to see what happens. And she is waiting for an audience with Napoleon. An aide approaches them.

“ _Je vous saurais gré de me suivre_.”

It turns out that Napoleon Bonaparte — republican hero and future emperor, upstart Corsican and French hero, social reformer and ruthless conqueror — is not, in fact, shorter than Lucy. In a purely technical sense, she discovers, she can look him in the eye. But this is an academic point; he is an overwhelming personality. Lucy’s mouth goes dry. She can still smell the tomatoes and garlic from the first consul’s dinner (not yet _poulet Marengo_ , but soon.) 

Watching Flynn cover the ground with febrile steps, watching him supply information to one of the modern world’s most gifted commanders, it comes to Lucy suddenly that she loves this man. She loves this haggard, earnest, patient man, who has been so much more than a soldier, and who has had so little chance to be anything else. 

Napoleon — Napoleon! — rearranges the maps on his desk. He demands that Flynn show him something; this much French Lucy understands without difficulty. And with steady hands, fluent gestures, Flynn does.

It won’t be the victory they know, whatever happens. They will return to the present not with Napoleon snatching victory from the astonished Melas after being taken by surprise himself, but with an outcome hopefully similar. Lucy’s head aches when she tries to think about the possible ramifications of Rittenhouse throwing their weight into the European balance of power at the dawn of the nineteenth century. But somewhere between instinct and professional opinion lies her deep conviction that she and Flynn cannot do other than they are doing. In the oily light of cheap candles, Lucy watches Napoleon Bonaparte’s face, grave in attention like that of any scholar listening to a fellow-specialist. She cannot help but feel that the strange, pyrotechnic attempts of this man to craft a new kind of empire must be preferable to an Austrian stranglehold on power, or to bloody in-fighting among the powers of Europe.

“… _comment_?” says the consul, and Lucy shakes herself slightly. The tension in the air warns her that it was a question unlike those that came before.

“ _Il y a quelques ans,_ ” replies Flynn, “ _j’ai fait la connaissance d’un de leurs capitaines. Nous avons lutté farouchement contre les mêmes ennemis, selon ce que je croyais. Il m’a trahi. Il a tué l’un de mes amis. Je connais à présent ce qu'il est capable de faire. Contre un tel adversaire, nous mettons notre confiance en Votre Excellence._ ” 

Lucy could swear that Napoleon’s mouth twitches briefly — in faint amusement at such formality from a man who had been communicating in professional jargon moments before, or in human sympathy, she cannot be sure. He nods briefly. “ _Je vous suis bien reconnaissant_.”

It is their dismissal. Lucy suppresses the desire to pull Flynn out of the tent, away from the possibility of interrogation, towards the anonymous June darkness where she can kiss unfamiliar syllables from his lips.

***

Only at night do his languages become confused. Lucy’s body remembers the timeline when her mother was an invalid, and she wakes easily. So it is not a hard thing, to get a hand on his chest — his heartbeat racing under her palm — and call him to her out of dreams. Sometimes he rouses with a start; sometimes he wakes still muttering, until he sees her, and his vision clears. He covers her hand with his, and silence is all they need.

After Cologne in 1941, he speaks less during the day, and at night not at all. Lucy used her choir-and-exam German to charm an administrator, and Wyatt used his military German to converse with the guards, and between them, they had been able to get the plans that Rittenhouse had tried to place in the hands of the Nazis. And Flynn used his German to get himself apprehended, and then to say nothing at all. The team had reasoned that dealing with one threat would make the Gestapo less suspicious of another; the event had vindicated them, and Wyatt had gotten them out. But Lucy lies awake at night, listening to the breathing of a man who no longer talks in his sleep. 

She does not always wake him. And she knows they cannot fight each other’s battles (she tells herself that the knowledge should not feel like a defeat.) But she does sometimes: if he breathes as though he had been running; or if he makes a noise choked off before it can become a keening. When he wakes, he never says anything but her name.

“Lucy?” Sometimes he says it as though it is a reality he cannot quite believe in.

“Lucy.” Sometimes he breathes it as though it is the only word he can remember, his shibboleth and his claim to sanctuary.

“Yes.” Sometimes she thinks that her heart will break with loving him. “ _Ich bin’s_ , it’s me, I’m here, _je suis là_ , _ja sam tu_.” She whispers reassurance in all the languages she knows, and with the silence of her mouth against his.

**Author's Note:**

> The overheard snatches of song are drawn from here: https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k9741016s/f149.texteImage
> 
> The place to which they go in 1941 Cologne is this, now an excellent if harrowing museum: https://museenkoeln.de/ns-dokumentationszentrum/default.aspx?s=333


End file.
